In a world with an intellectual history of seven thousand years behind it, where do Pakistanis stand, what are they doing, what do they aspire to be, and what ought they to be doing? This Blog takes Notes of all of that ...

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Media consumption?

The
theory of media consumption stands vindicated in Pakistan!

The
story goes thus:

On
June 29 the Federal Defense Minister, Ahmed Mukhtar, who had been sleeping all
through the May 2 Abbottabad-Osama-Bin-Laden and May 23 PNS-Mehran-Karachi
happenings, awoke to talk to a group of journalists apprising them that
Pakistan had asked Washington to vacate the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan which
was used to launch Drone strikes against the militants. The Minister remained
awake to tell the Reuters on the following day that Islamabad had been pressing
the US to leave the base even before the 'Abbottabad incursion' and did so
again after the 'incursion.'

Very
next day, the message had already generated its rebuke. The US officials in
Washington reacted that there was no plan to vacate the base.

Then
it was on July 1 that the Federal Minister for Information, Dr. Firdous Ashiq
Awan, had to settle the matter. She while talking to media persons in Lahore
declared: "It was just a statement for the media." She clarified that
'she was a member of the defense committee and the matter was not discussed
there.'

Is
there something such as for the consumption of media? Should there be something
such as for the consumption of media? If so, as is the case, what is media for,
then? To consume? To consume endlessly? Yeah, it's a voracious consumer, 24
hour consumer. Now, they say it is its freedom what it chooses to consume? But
this freedom of it does not work for a 24 hour long day; that means it has to
consume sometime or most of the time it has no choice in having it on its
table, and it depends on the nature of its appetite and its taste. There the
governments find room to bring in the media to consume they want it to consume;
though, there are many other ways governments have got to regulate the appetite
and taste of the media.

Functionally,
media is sort of an information bridge between the rulers and the ruled. But it
has come to be a one-way bridge at best, and most of the time. The two-way
traffic on this bridge is not allowed and needs media-men like Omar Cheema and
Saleem Shahzad, and may cost life. This is this one-way traffic about which the
Federal Information Minister alluded when she brushed aside her government's
Defense Minister's substantive talk by terming it something which was meant for
the media. Why do media need such stuff? Of course, it does not need any such
thing (or otherwise), for its own sake, or for its staff, or for its bosses, or
for nothing? Obviously, it goes to the citizens of the country with what it
picks up from here and there, or is "given" to it by X, Y or Z. After
separating wheat from chaff it brings it to its end-users.

However,
it is here that it sets itself to consuming chaff, and not wheat. That is what
the Information Minister alluded to. The media picked up what the Defense
Minister threw or the Information Minister threw and brought it up to its
viewers, the citizens, who are ultimate end-users. In other words, what
Information Minister dubbed as 'for media consumption' is for the consumption
of the viewers, the citizens, finally.

That
is what is known as Public Consumption. Also, government has laws and rules
such as official secret acts, or classified information; it goes beyond that
and conceals its affairs from the citizens, and makes their leaking a crime. In
addition to concealing its affairs, government lies as well as misleads the
citizens. It contrives incomplete, incorrect and false information which they
mean for “public consumption.” In this game, the media serves as a tool of the
government. Otherwise, what else the Information Minister's 'for the media
consumption' may amount to?

As
no one from the media protested over the Information Minister's 'for the media'
theory, it meant not only the media is ready to consume such misleading stuff;
it is ready to mislead its viewers also. The question is: Is media an
accomplice in the Great Crime being committed in Pakistan against its citizens?

The Blogger

The blogger cherishes a cosmopolitan spirit; he is a moralist; a rationalist; a philosopher; a political philosopher; he believes in Classical Liberalism, as a Theory of Conduct.
He has substantially contributed to the founding of the first free market think tank of Pakistan, Alternate Solutions Institute.
He is a writer who wrote / published dozens of articles on a variety of issues, and is author of 4 books.
He wrote / published short-stories in Punjabi, a regional language of Pakistan.
He composes poetry both in Urdu and Punjabi, and has already published one collection.